


the many for a few (it's not all about you)

by pistolgrip



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 17:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19795624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: The commotion on the decks of the Grandcypher feels off balance, and Quatre is on a tipping scale towards the source.





	the many for a few (it's not all about you)

**Author's Note:**

> for the loveliest ame, who wanted 3000 words (and then some, LET ME LOVE YOU) of a quatre & six dynamic after their 5*s, quatre coping with gran returning severely injured from a mission, and quatre interacting with the eternals in general. also, blink-and-you-miss-it siete/six, because she HAD to clarify they were secretly dating, how dare you
> 
> thank you for allowing me to be the one to breathe life into your prompt!

The Grandcypher is loud, but laced with panic and not mirth.

Quatre is drawn like a puppet on a string to the entrance, sensing the worst. As he approaches, he hears before he sees Siete yelling. The authoritative tone of his voice strikes alarm bells through him; this voice is reserved for emergencies. At his directions, most people drawn by the commotion disperse, and those with healing capacities lend their strength.

They can't be back. It's too soon.

Caught in possibilities, he returns to harsh reality when Siete looks at him and his voice falters. He doesn't stop Quatre from approaching or running alongside him. Siete's grip on Gran tightens, carrying him over his shoulder, and Quatre feels the world collapse underneath him, and he sees red—red blood all over Gran, red with anger boiling over and seeking a target, red sewn to the soles of his feet and carving bloody footprints in his wake.

Siete doesn't prod him to talk. Quatre has nothing to say when he's trying to contain his fury into a single point within his control.

Gran's condition is so bad that when Siete lays him onto a clean bed, those at the sick bay take one look at him before removing their small group. As the double doors close, he sees them move Gran to another room, arm hanging off the edge.

When he turns around, he sees Siete's arms limply by his sides, wet with blood— _Gran's_ blood, and Quatre balls his fists until the crescents of his nails leave marks in his palm. "I trusted you," he states, each syllable carrying barely a molecule of the turmoil that's racked him.

"I know—"

"You don't," Quatre says over him. "If you knew, you would have done better."

Siete doesn't miss a beat. "I'm just as worried as you are, Quatre. Gran's a friend of mine, too." He must be expecting Quatre's ire, and his predictability makes the storm in his chest threaten to burst, his words slipping out of his control.

"That's exactly why you should know to keep him out of fucking trouble," he grits out. He takes a breath, measuring it against the sound of Gran's blood dripping from Siete's fingertips onto the ground, like an hourglass with falling sand. "Can you clean yourself up?"

"I guess I should—"

"You should," he says, turning around and cutting him off. He doesn't need Siete's attempts to defuse his emotions. What he needs is for Siete to leave, and only when his bloodstained armour leaves his sight can he sit down and begin to breathe air into his lungs.

Gran being this injured means that no one stopped him from going too far. Siete trusts too much that Gran knows his own limits, Nio is non-confrontational, and Scathacha forgets how fragile mortality can be _._ Siete was the one most well-equipped to stop him, and he hadn't.

Esser arrives beside Nio, the latter of which looks cautious but shaken. Unlike Siete, Nio has the decency to avoid talking him down, and he appreciates her company more during this time. His melody must be causing her pain, because she hunches over on herself even as she sits beside him. Esser wears worry more plain on her face than Quatre would ever show, sitting on his other side.

Esser and Nio's conversation fades into a dull, high-pitched buzz. His focus remains on the blood smeared against the floor, red scars from the same flesh he’d once marred by his own hands.

* * *

Sleeping is a futile effort. In his dreams, that same shade of blood red wraps around Quatre's wrist, his neck, strangling him until he can't breathe, stringing him as a puppet to misery's whims. When he collapses onto his knees from lack of breath, Gran's body fills his vision, covered in red except a line around his finger, a line around his neck. He feels the warm blood at his knees but a cold body in his arms.

He wakes up, feeling sweat run down his back. With excessive energy, he paces in his room, twisting the red ring around his middle finger over and over; it's been mere hours since he'd tried to sleep. When Gran's gone, he's taken to sleeping in his room, but it's too quiet, his ragged breathing filling the empty space between the walls. The rumpled sheets without Gran's frame reminds him of a corpse among beds of blossoming flowers.

Energy is coiled in him, ready to spring. He jumps on his feet and traverses the hallways toward the sick bay, so singularly focused that he doesn't notice the person that comes up beside him until they put their hand on his shoulder. He whips around, ready to pounce, but nearly collides with Esser.

It's then that he notes that she's on her way from the sick bay towards Gran's room, where she knows he's been resting. Judging by the look on her face, her ears drooping by the side of her head, there hasn't been any change in Gran's state.

His heart sinks, but he keeps his chin up. "You should go rest," he tells her. She looks like she wants to protest, but he leaves no room for it. If _she_ looks tired, he must look exhausted; they reflect each other, but he carries the shadows of the night with him so she can bloom.

"I'll stay," she says, biting down on her lip and brushing away where his hair has stuck to his clammy cheeks. He closes his eyes and breathes out, and she doesn't leave his side when walking beside him.

* * *

Quatre knows days pass while he waits for Gran, because the doors of the sick bay open to a different time of day whenever someone enters or leaves. None of them are Gran, and none of them offer meaningful updates.

Members of the Grandcypher stay with him when they see him in front of the sick bay. Siete is there most often, and Quatre has been sick of his company since day one. He doesn't want it. He wants to see Gran walk out, healthy and trying to convince everyone he's okay, so Quatre can tear him a new one about not taking care of himself again.

"What's the leader of the Eternals doing slacking off here at the sick bay?" he snaps after Siete shows up with two plates of leftovers. The intent to eat dinner with Quatre another night is clear, but the thought of food is enough to make his stomach turn inside out.

"Your body needs to be in tip-top shape so your mind can be." Siete sits down, but Quatre moves away from him.

"You're ignoring my question. Put me on a mission. I've been doing fuck all for days. I know I have my regulars."

"There aren't any." Siete pauses, watching him. "Missions," he clarifies.

"Bullshit."

"There aren't. Ask Uno yourself, he's redistributing your missions for the time being until Gran's out." His eyebrows raise, and Quatre wonders how obvious the expression on his face is. "Hey, wait, if you're gonna find him, at least eat—"

He ignores it, walking past him. That's more of an answer than Siete's given him in the past few days. He curses himself for waiting so long; there's few things worse than Gran getting injured to that degree, and it's sitting there, _watching_ and waiting for him to get better.

It doesn't take him long to find Uno. He thankfully hasn't left the Grandcypher; Quatre knows the best place to call home base for anyone taking his regular missions is the Grandcypher and not Terra.

Uno's door is ajar, and before he finishes walking through, he asks, "Why isn't Siete giving out the missions?"

Uno answers like he's been expecting Quatre to show up. "He's done a few, but he's preoccupied with his concern for you."

He ignores the acknowledgment of Siete's guilt. It tastes like pity, coating his mouth with empty apologies, and maybe it's why his stomach revolts at the thought of food. "Then who's doing the rest of them?"

"All of us whenever possible. Six is taking the majority of his own volition."

That gives him pause. Not only had Quatre had been so preoccupied that others noticed, picking up his slack for ignoring his duty, but it was _Six_ that took it upon himself to fill in the gaps. Quatre knows there are people in his life that he can share his burdens with, but this has gone too far.

When his mind clears, he thinks of the bags under Siete's eyes, and he thinks of Six's missing presence from Quatre's late night meal expeditions. He'd snarled at Siete for slacking, but the sick realization coils in his stomach that it was himself he'd been frustrated at.

The thought of apologizing to Siete gives him a headache. He starts with someone that's _marginally_ easier to deal with. "Where's Six? At the base?"

"He should be on a mission," Uno says. "He may return to the Grandcypher before nightfall."

* * *

The Revenant Weapons' assaults have left the Eternals alive and even stronger. The dislike he used to have for Six has faded into annoyance—and some days, an emotion kinder than that. He thinks that this is one of those times where the residual irritation rises again, but he shakes his head. He knows he's redirecting his own irritation at being negligent with his duties onto Six instead, and he grits his teeth.

Six is still too passive for his likes, but in an odd way. He's always moving, whether it be forward or sideways or picking himself back up, but he does so in the shadows without alerting anyone.

In the dead of night, he approaches Six's door and knocks. The best time to find him is now, when no one else is awake but the shadows in the halls. Quatre thinks that Six has an ulterior motive by taking his missions, but he tries to put his old suspicions in favour of getting a straight answer out of him.

By Uno's estimations, Six should have returned by now. His mind wanders to the prospect of Six's entrance onto the Grandcypher, wounded—but he's assaulted with the terror on Nio's face, the ghostly disbelief on Siete's. Gran's limp body as they moved him to the sick bay. The doors shutting in his face, trapping Quatre with nothing but his thoughts.

Gran was reckless, but for others before himself. The dream and the memories congeal in his mind until the only coherent thought that bubbles from the mud of disgusting feelings is this: he's unsure if he _could_ have stopped Gran, had he been there.

He doesn't know how long he's been standing there until the door finally opens. Like everything about Six, he doesn't know it's happening until there's a break in the darkness and Six's half-masked face is peering at him from behind the open door.

"Quatre. This is unusual," he says.

He's so used to hearing Six's voice from their years together that under his gravelly timbre, he can hear his exhaustion. Six doesn't make it obvious, eyeing him with scrutiny from his half-unmasked face. Quatre's regular missions are performed by rote, mentally dull but physically demanding. Six has no lack of power, but without proper rest, it leaves him prone to exhaustion.

Before Quatre can chastise him for overextending, Six continues. "You haven't eaten."

He frowns. "You can't tell from looking."

"One meal is imperceptible. But many days without becomes obvious."

"Then what about you? You just got back, didn't you?"

"Correct," Six says, no change in his expression. "I intended to eat after rest, but there is no purpose to delay if you are here."

Without regard for Quatre's personal space, Six steps out of his room, locks the door behind him, and walks towards the mess hall. The initiative is surprising at first, but he _ha_ _s_ been taking Quatre's missions without prompt.

He opens his mouth to protest, but his stomach gets there first, grumbling loud in the empty hallway. Six looks at him, raising an eyebrow, and then keeps walking. "Wait a damn minute," Quatre says, but Six pays it no mind.

Every stubborn bone in his body wants to stand here until Six turns around, but hunger is now at the forefront of his mind, and he values getting answers more than standing his ground for stubbornness' sake.

He jogs beside Six, who does little more than glance at him. "Why the hell have you been doing my missions?" he prompts, with no preamble.

"They needed to be completed."

"Then why didn't Uno ask me? I'm not _dead._ "

"I am not Uno," Six says, like it answers the question. "I cannot respond to your satisfaction."

Quatre's annoyance is flaring up. This is the part of Six that he can't stand, the part that's learnt to help others but never how to talk about it. Quatre trusts him in battle, but Six approaches delicate matters with all the grace of a stumbling newborn.

At this hour, the mess hall is empty. Six's tiredness begins to show when he walks past the main kitchen to find them both leftovers, and Quatre has to agree with the idea of not having to prepare food. The process of reheating their scraps and finding a place to sit is done without conversation, giving Quatre the time to gather his thoughts.

Six doesn't bother removing the other half of his mask while eating. He keeps his eyes down to his plate, but when Quatre takes too long to start, Six tilts his eye up, the spoon pausing halfway to his mouth. "Eat," he says, a clear command.

His ears twitch with irritation at Six getting the first word in, and then at knowing that Six is right. Quatre abandoned his routine, consumed by worry about Gran's recovery. He takes a bite; he doesn't feel like eating, but he knows he has to. He spares a thought to what Siete would say if he saw him eating after Six insisted _once_ , but he relinquishes the thought. He can already hear the whine of, _B_ _ut I_ _was trying_ _for so long!_

Siete's big brother routine is about atonement. He had gone out of his way to make old comfort foods from their early days in Stardust Town the past few nights, and Quatre didn't even clean the dirty bowls himself.

He sighs through his nose and swallows, all jagged edges down to his stomach, but it's something.

Six clears his throat, and when Quatre looks up at him, he looks more awkward than he has all night. "Words are not my strength," he starts.

"No shit," Quatre says, but it lacks bite. He doesn't want empty words, but he appreciates that Six is trying to reach out to him.

He's used to watching people in unfamiliar situations, and the way Six's shoulders relax is unmistakable. He can't imagine why, but the abrasive wording puts Six at ease. "Then you'll forgive my delivery in lieu of the content."

"Depends on how you say it."

"As equally as it is your inclination to be by Gran's side should he be harmed," Six says, and Quatre tries not to visibly react to that, "it is mine to ensure that the Eternals can continue operations. That is to say…" He pauses.

A frown flickers across his features so briefly that Quatre thinks he'd imagined it if he didn't hold so much faith in reading expressions. "Should I be in the same position, I'd… trust that others would offer the same courtesy to me."

Quatre's chewing slows down, watching his body language write a novel about his inner monologue. He's so pathetically bad at hiding _anything_ that he relies on an external mask to obscure himself—but it's one thing to know how little restraint Six has over his emotions, and it's another to watch every thought broadcast across his face.

When Six first joined the crew as the last member of the Eternals, it was so obvious that he was volatile on every dimension. If he'd massacred under immense social pressure once before, then it could have happened again in his first few months with the Eternals, when he was so petrified he didn't leave his room.

But Six had learnt to redirect his emotions until it manifested like this: awkward words for someone to witness, but with good intentions. Good intentions aren't everything, but for Six, it's all he's got, his road to hell already paved.

Six opens his mouth. "That is to say—"

"I heard you loud and clear, thanks," he says, putting up a hand, cutting him off before he rambles any longer. Six's ears relax from their alert position on top of his head, and he nods. Despite the haste of his response, he means it, and after he takes another bite of food he tries again. "...Thank you," he says, more seriously this time.

Six nods again after a pause, caught off guard from being thanked a second time, even if the first was sarcastic. They finish their meals in silence, and Quatre feels like he can keep food down for the first time in days.

Gran didn't need protection; coming back injured but _alive_ proved it. It would have been worse if it was anyone but Gran or the team he'd assembled for the battlefield. Gran told him that he would never put his life in true danger, but for Lyria's sake rather than his own.

Quatre wants to call him a bastard for it. But he knows no amount of berating will erase the notion from his mind that Gran only does what's necessary. He doesn't like it—but Six doesn't need to hear it. He'll save it for when Gran wakes up.

Six says nothing else, but he waits for Quatre to finish before walking off to wash their dishes. As they clean up, Quatre frowns to himself, letting the warm water run over his hands, the warmest he's felt since Gran's blood was seared into his palms.

Six's actions have eluded him all night. They're awkward and stilted as always, but they're unscripted, and each of his decisions takes a few moments of silent deliberation. Quatre wouldn't it notice on anyone else, but it's obvious that the motions of providing emotional support are unfamiliar to Six.

He tries to word the complaint, and then it clicks.

"…Stop standing in for Siete," he says, finally, putting his clean plate in the drying rack. "I get enough of the eat-and-tell-me-about-your-life routine."

When Six doesn't answer, Quatre looks over to him. In his eye is a sparkle of amusement that looks out of place on his impassive expression. "I am doing nothing of the sort."

"Save it. You think I didn't grow up with that _big brother_ shit?" It almost makes him laugh out of genuine amusement that _Six_ is following that routine.

"Part of accepting your missions in your stead means that I confirm you will be of sound mind and body to return to your duty. This is a temporary solution, and the upkeep of your health is as important as Gran's—"

"Okay," Quatre says, nose scrunching up with distaste. "I don't like this."

"Then you should take better care. It would be another tragedy if Gran recuperates, only to discover you have been neglecting yourself. All of the Eternals hold that thought, not only Siete." Six gives him a knowing look out of the corner of his eye. "I have another mission to prepare for, so I must take my leave. I trust you can continue here."

"Is it one of mine?"

"Yes."

"Don't fuck it up for me," he taunts, feeling more like himself than he has in days.

The corner of Six's mouth twitches upwards into a challenging grin. "It would take effort to sabotage one of your missions."

Quatre's snort releases anxiety from his chest. He'll get back at Six for this one day. "Fucker."

**Author's Note:**

> title from tender's _tar_.


End file.
